For this week’s playlist I’m honored to be continuing the recent trend of “Ultimate Setlists” with one of my favorite bands: Bayside. Last year Bayside celebrated their 15th anniversary and this year they’re bringing us a brand new album titled Vacancy — due out August 19th. To commemorate the release the band is heading out with The Menzingers and Sorority Noise on what promises to be one of the best tours of the summer. So what better time to really dive into Bayside’s expansive catalog?
The Ultimate Motion City Soundtrack Setlist
Last week I brought you the first installment in the “Ultimate Setlist” playlist. This week, I’m doing it again. This time it’s for one of my all-time favorite acts, Motion City Soundtrack. I’m not ready to pour one out, but the band recently embarked on their farewell tour, and I figured now would be as good a time as any to try and curate a career-spanning setlist. No pressure, right? Same rules as last time: 22 songs including a two song encore. The full track listing is below and you can find the playlists on Apple Music and Spotify.
The Ultimate Jimmy Eat World Setlist
For this week’s playlist I’m putting together what I call “The Ultimate Setlist.” This is a concept that my friend Mike came up with back when people still made mix CDs. The idea is to give someone a starting place in a band’s discography, basically a jumping off point to the artist’s best songs and biggest hits. The rules are fairly simple: arrange the playlist in such a way that emulates the perfect setlist for the band, and make sure that the playlist comes in under 80 minutes (that was the length for CD-Rs — remember those, from another life?). This week, I’m jumping in with Jimmy Eat World and you can find my picks on Apple Music and Spotify.
Underappreciated Blink-182 Songs
For this week’s playlist I decided to just go all in with the Blink-182 theme that’s been pretty unavoidable this week. Instead of putting together just a playlist of my favorites, or the “best of,” I went for what I consider to be underappreciated Blink-182 songs. Songs that I don’t think get enough attention in their catalog. The only rules I made for myself was that I had to keep it under 45 minutes. You can find my picks on Apple Music and Spotify and I’d love to hear what you’d put on your “underappreciated” list.
One Song for Twenty Years
For this week’s playlist I asked everyone in the staff Slack chat to pick one song that came out between 1996 and 2016 (roughly the time that AbsolutePunk was sort of a thing). It didn’t have to be their favorite song from that time period, but it had to mean something to them and be special for some reason. I’ve compiled all the tracks that were submitted and put together a playlist on Apple Music and Spotify for your weekend listening pleasure. Below you’ll find a more extended break down of who picked what song. You get one song — what would you pick?
Music I Liked Last Month
One of the things I’d like to do more of is put together playlists. Maybe sometimes they’ll have a theme, maybe they’ll just be a bunch of music I’ve played recently, and maybe I’ll be able to bring in some guests to help out in the future. But, it’s all got to start with the first one. I’ve put together a playlist of a bunch of stuff I’ve listened to, and enjoyed, over the past month or so. The goal was to try to cover a few diverse genres and keep the length right at the hour mark. You can find the playlist on Apple Music and Spotify or via an embed if you hit read more.